


Life Line

by Gairid



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Foreshadowing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-05
Updated: 2010-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gairid/pseuds/Gairid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place during Louis's mortal life; a foreshadowing of what is to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Line

**Author's Note:**

> The character Yvette shares the name of the slave in the film _Interview With The Vampire_. The resemblance ends with the name.

##  Life Line

Something was on Louis' mind, Yvette was quite certain of it. She was content to wait until he had thought his way around whatever it was and decided whether or not he wanted to talk about it. These two had been fast friends since babyhood and so the silence that spun out in the October sunshine between them was easy. They had fishing lines dipped into the meandering brown water, but neither one of them was paying much attention, drowsy with the warm afternoon and the comfort of each other's presence.

Louis had removed his linen shirt and tossed it aside in an untidy heap along with his shoes and stockings. His long hair was gathered in a rough horsetail that hung forward over one shoulder and down his chest. Yvette could see the crescent shadows cast by the knobs of his bowed spine, starkly black on his tanned skin. He sat with his knees drawn up to his narrow boy's chest, the fishing line held loosely in one hand. In his fourteenth year, he had already attained much of his height, but as is usual with boys of his age, he had yet to fill out and his wrists seemed too fine, his ankles too delicate contrasted with the size of his hands and his feet. For all that he had grown so quickly in such a short time, he had lost very little of his natural grace and his movements were not awkward or clumsy. Yvette was secretly pleased by this for it added to her firmly held belief that Louis was not quite the same as other boys.

There was a sudden tug on Louis' line and he let the string play out from the careful coil in his hand. His posture had gone from somnolent to intent in that moment and he rose slowly, watching the line play out. With a practiced jerk of his hand, the fish was hooked and Louis began winding the line to bring it in.

"He's a big one." Yvette commented when the fish was landed. Louis nodded, still absorbed. He watched the fish flop in the tall grass, its gills gaping brilliant pink as it struggled to breathe. The sun flashed silver on its muscular body.

"I'll hold him and you take the hook out," he said. It took him several tries, but he managed to get a firm grasp. Yvette extracted the hook and Louis released the fish back into the water, watching the rings widen where it had disappeared. Dragonflies stitched the surface.

I had a dream," Louis said, sitting down again. His hands worked the tangled line, winding it again the way Moses had taught him. Yvette stayed quiet, waiting for him to go on. After a while he did, his eyes trained on the slow-moving bayou. A faint breeze stirred the moss in the massive live oaks that surrounded them.

"A man. I couldn't see his face no matter how I tried. There was a bright light in his hair. Maybe not a man. Maybe an angel." He secured the line neatly and laid it in the grass. "I opened my mouth to say something to him, but he raised his hand and he spoke. He said the time was coming." Louis turned his head and the look in his eyes brought the sudden metallic taste of fear into her mouth. His eyes blazed. Bright light he'd said, and that was what she saw in _his_ eyes.

"Were you afraid?"

"No. I was--," He struggled for the right word, his neck staining with the flush that rose into his face. "Exalted." He threw her a challenging look as though daring her to laugh.

"Like in church?" she asked, honestly puzzled. Louis sang in the choir each Sunday at Mass and the clear treble of his voice made her heart soar. That was the feeling she associated with the word he had used.

"Like that." Louis affirmed, "But—more. I dreamed of him other times, too, but this was the first time he spoke." He looked away. The vein in his neck pulsed steadily and looking at it made her feel funny and hot and faint all at once and there was something else, too, something portentous just out of her mind's reach. The heated feeling drowned it out and she forgot about the feeling of missing something until later on.

There was a huge limb half submerged in the water and as she waited for him to speak again, she watched a turtle creep up to join several others stationed there, necks stretched forward as they basked.

"He reached out to me and his skin was so pale I could see the blue veins on the back of his hand. I reached to touch him and his hand was cool and smooth and I thought maybe that I had a fever because his touch was like a blessing. Like cool water when you are thirsty. He turned my hand over and traced my palm with his shining fingernail and for a minute I thought I could see his eyes, stormy gray eyes--"

Louis' voice trailed off and Yvette saw that he was rubbing his left palm with the thumb of his right hand. Again she felt a nasty little lance of fear and suddenly she didn't want to hear any more about the dream man. The breeze picked up and she heard the pop and snap of bream feeding by the lily pads near the bank where they sat. The sky had taken on a bronze cast. There was a sudden gust of wind, cool and fragrant with oncoming rain; a litter of small yellow leaves scattered across the water. Thunder muttered somewhere to the south.

"We should go." Yvette rose to fetch her shoes.

"There's something else," Louis said as though he had not heard her.

"What?"

"I'll show you. Come here."

"The storm…"

"The storm is still a little way off."

Yvette went to him reluctantly and sat down beside him The wind gusted again and lifted the errant strands of his black hair back from his face. The avid light had faded from his eyes but she felt no less apprehensive. The feeling was strange for she was always easy around him. He put his hand in hers and turned it palm up. She looked into his eyes.

"What is it?"

"Look at my hand."

She did, and at first she wasn't sure just what it was she was looking for—a wound, maybe, or a splinter of wood to be extracted. After a moment, she saw and she let go of his hand with a gasp.

"That cannot be. Louis, that can't happen."

He shrugged. "But it has."

She snatched his other hand and saw that the same thing had happened there.

Everyone has lines on their palms, creases from the way the hands close and open and there are those that are said to be able to see glimpses of things in these lines. Yvette was one such person and what she saw before her eyes went a far way into explaining the fear she'd felt when he had begun speaking of his dream.

His life line was—gone. The other lines were in place as they had always been, the love line there with two distinct parts, the creases at the joints of his fingers. Yvette had looked at his hands often, held them in hers, and she knew what they looked like.

The life line was gone.

"What does it mean?" he asked. His innocence broke her heart; the trust in his face wrenched at her.

"I don't know. We should ask _Maman_."

"No," Louis said adamantly. "Not yet."

The wind had picked up and was blowing steadily. The willows along the bank rippled, flashing the silver-white undersides of their small leaves as though signaling the coming storm. 

"She'll know, Louis. She always knows."

"Not yet," he repeated, standing to go and fetch his shoes. "Promise me."

There was a blue flash overhead, followed by a shattering thunderclap. Louis threw his arms around Yvette and pulled her close. On the far bank of the bayou, smoke rose from the scorched side of one of the old cypress trees; one of the higher limbs tore free with a rending screech. Fat drops of rain began to fall.

They stood gaping at the tree for a moment and then Louis said, "Put your shoes on. We have to go."

She hadn't promised anything, but later, in the kitchen house with _Maman_ Mirande's good food in their bellies, she felt better and when she met his worried eyes, she nodded to let him know that she would remain silent as he had asked.

Louis lingered in the kitchen house, more comfortable there with Mirande and Yvette and their family than he was with his own mother. His Papa was away in New Orleans and Louis was loathe to go to the big house where he was certain to receive disapproving words from Paulette de Pointe du Lac followed by banishment to his chambers, there to be alone with his new worry. He got up anyway, knowing that he was only putting off the inevitable. Mirande watched him with her sharp dark eyes; she always knew when something troubled the boy, for she'd raised him up alongside her own daughter.

"Your shirt is clean, child. _Madame_ will think only that you were caught in the rain and not tossing your clothes so thoughtlessly into the mud."

Louis hung his head briefly, but he saw her broad smile when he looked at her from beneath the fringe of his lashes. He smiled back.

"_Merci, maman_," he said, going to receive her warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. He loved the way she smelled, like warm bread and the pungent herbs she used in her remedies.

The storm had passed and Louis stood near the _pigeoniere_ listening to the muffled cooing of the doves within. The lamps in the house glowed warmly but he lingered in the dark, unconsciously rubbing his palms together and thinking again of the dreams and wondering what it all meant, wondering why the figure that had beckoned with his white hands and gray eyes seemed more real to him than so much of his waking life did. He wondered, too, why the night comforted him in ways that the sun so rarely did anymore.

"_Qui êtes-vous?_" Louis muttered into the darkness. He detached himself from the shadows and went inside.

****

FIN


End file.
